'Paintings,' C.S.A.

Press, 23 July 1987, Page 22

'Paintings,' C.S.A.

“Paintings,” by Rosemary Campbell at the C.S.A., Canaday Gallery until July 26. Reviewed by Pat Unger. Atmosphere that precipitates form, rather than form dissolved by atmosphere, is the basis of Rosemary Campbell’s work at the C.S.A. Gallery. Her “juxtaposed transparency and density” stretches both paint and the imagination. Campbell relates her work to the “arid erosion of the Mackenzie Basin” and when her colours range from the gorgeous to the hot, they make her “colour-Venice” of the South Canterbury area, believable. Her cold blue-

grey works suggest more the flood times, or a wintering-over period, while others represent perhaps the area in prehistory. Almost-seen fantasy figures, dream happenings and organic half-relisa-tions in loose, painterly grounds are held in a balance of line and space, wash and density and spontaneous quickness with detail. Slide enlargements of sub-atomic matter or "what the waterbabies saw” spring to mind, encouraged by curious titles such as "Alpine Inciso,” “Smorzando Purple” and “Jubilate Yellow.” Campbell, an experi-

enced painter, easily moves from focus to field. She controls her space well and uses the crisping effect of line and the design appeal of large expanses of white paper to advantage. With today’s taste for large works that sparkle, overwhelm or titillate the viewer with their visual over-kill or technological expertise, works such as Campbell’s appear modest. But they deserve attention for her display of skill with media and her ability to balance her compositions, not always evident in works of that period or even in the lastest just off the easel.